Mickey Starling
reporter3.riverbendnews@gmail.com
First coming to use in the 1800s, “keep your chin up” came to be a popular expression for encouraging people to press on through difficult circumstances and to never give up. It is original to the United States, where it first came into print in the 1900 edition of a newspaper in Pennsylvania, the Evening Democrat: “Keep your chin up! Don’t take your troubles to bed with you - hang them on a chair with your trousers or drop them in a glass of water with your teeth.”
The phrase is heard occasionally, though I’ve never been told to put my troubles in my trousers, and my teeth are still firmly attached. But, I have been told to keep my chin up on numerous occasions in my younger days. The phrase took on a darker form of encouragement in the days when capital punishment often involved a noose. It was common for the hangman to utter these words to the condemned as a way to tell them to face their fate bravely. Also, taking the phrase literally was of some benefit as well, since holding the chin in an upward position before the noose tightens helped the process of dying to be expedited. It seems that holding the head down during a hanging would lead to a lengthy suffocation process that was anything but encouraging.
On a lighter note, and far less stressful than a hanging, is the term “down to the wire.” This is a phrase I am all too familiar with, as I was the procrastination king in my school days. The true mark of a large and important assignment for me was to wait until the last possible moment to begin working on it. I always said I worked better under pressure, but I actually just lacked the needed motivation to excel, especially where term papers were concerned. By now, you have properly surmised that the current meaning of the phrase is waiting to the last minute, or that something, usually in a competitive sense, is very close.
The term originates around 1900, again in America, as a way to describe the winner of a close horse race. A thin wire was often run above the finish line so that it was easier to determine the winner. Today, we are more apt to say such a race had a “photo finish” because we can determine winners by reviewing film footage now. By the way, the timing for completing this article is coming down to the wire, but I’m keeping my chin up.
If the information given about these phrases has left you less than impressed, you might say that it wasn’t “worth a hill of beans,” thus taking us to my third phrase. Like the other sayings, this is also credited to America, coming into usage in the 1800s.
However, it is believed that the phrase sprouted from a singular bean some 700 years ago. A long-forgotten king in a distant land once referred to some worthless object as “not worth a bean.” Over the centuries, I suppose, the bean multiplied into a small mound, or hill, of equally worthless beans.
Whatever the case, “worth a hill of beans” has continued to signify something of little or no value, especially here in the south, where we know a thing or two about beans.